There's an old joke. Two guys get together, and the first one says, "You know, I really feel like telling off the boss again."
The second one says, "Again?"
"Sure," comes the reply, "I felt like telling him off yesterday too!"
At some point, we all want to tell off the boss. It's not limited to me. I've had ten bosses at my current job. Each of them probably wanted to tell off his/her boss too.
We seldom let loose in the face of authority. Mostly, we grumble to ourselves and suck it up. On those few occasions when emotion trumps restraint, it can be downright petrifying.
I remember one incredible screaming match with my bosses boss. This was nearly twenty years ago and I was much more hot headed... and expendable. He was hot headed too, so we just went at it.
I left that fight knowing I'd soon be fired.
I wasn't and never figured out why. Trust me, it wasn't because he liked my spunk¹!
Anyway, what brings this up is what was said by Rinker Buck, a reporter for the Hartford Courant. He told his bosses off - questioned the marching orders they've given, and he's done so publicly.
He hadn't finished the first paragraph of his rhetorical treatise when he said:
Why would a newspaper that its owners say is still profitable commit commercial suicide like this?
Check!
It's tough to accurately (and briefly) characterize what is a lengthy and very well written piece. In its essence, Buck says the paper has cut away all the fat it could find at the Courant and is now well into cutting away bone and muscle. He insists the staff and readers are being made to pay for the sins of the managers back in Chicago.
As I said, it's really well written. It is also his opinion and I have no idea whether that opinion is the same one I'd form if I knew what he knows. I don't even know if his assertions are based in fact.
I'm hoping he's right at the same time I'm hoping he's wrong.
Like a football player who makes the catch, knowing he will be brutally tackled by his defenders, Rinker Buck has put himself in jeopardy. I can't imagine his bosses, his bosses bosses, or their bosses, will take kindly to what he wrote.
Maybe he's hoping the Tribune Corporation's executives are already too fixated on their Los Angeles publisher and editor who have also openly questioned management's order to slash payroll - again.
Still, if you've ever wanted to give your boss a little piece of your mind, don't you envy Rinker Buck just a little?
¹ - That one sentence is my homage to the Mary Tyler Moore Show. In the very first episode, Mary sits in news director Lou Grant's office, as he says, "Mary, you've got spunk... I hate spunk."
